The Hidden Fortress is more "accessible" and "entertaining" than Rashômon, but Kurosawa's artistry is ever present.

Throne of Blood plays with Noh's frightening incongruity, its delicacy of movement expressing mortifyingly indelicate actions, as when Washizu and Asaji deflate like punctured blow-up dolls as they resolve themselves to treason.

Akira Kurosawa’s samurai, Stuart Heisler’s gangster, Sergio Leone’s cowboy, and George Miller’s misfit suffer a similar black eye, but with dramatically different effect.

Akira Kurosawa displays such mastery of the fundamental elements of film in Rashomon that it’s worth repeated viewings, and rewards the attentive viewer with the equivalent of a master class in film aesthetics.

Akira Kurosawa makes a daring attempt to tell an epic story of rich businessmen, determined cops, and the low-end criminals and drug addicts struggling to survive.

Mid-way through our series, Day 5 is a glorious mishmash of international auteurist cinema. Today we go from saints and sinners, from Brookyln to Britain, from the beginning of time to the Dystopian future, and around the world and beyond.

Today we bring to an end our examination of each of the films of Kurosawa directed in his amazing career. After the ambitious epic Ran, Kurosawa embarked a three smaller but more personal films.

By identifying Lear with the ancient Japanese warlord Hidetora, whose violations emerge from a breach of publicly identified self-hood, Akira Kurosawa plays with the quintessentially Shakespearean focus on individual personality.